


Abnegation

by faithinthepoor



Series: Desperate Housewives [27]
Category: Desperate Housewives
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-15
Updated: 2014-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-08 23:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1960179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post Thank You So Much</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abnegation

**Author's Note:**

> Follows [Unseemly](http://archiveofourown.org/works/668467), [The Theory of Everything](http://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor), [Here There Be Dragons](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673221), [Somnambulist](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673229), [Wishin’ and Hopin’](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673233), [Nosology](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673238), [Boundary Violations](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673240), [Fractals](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673250), [Windmill Tilting](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673255), [Ambitendency](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673262), [Heisenberg Territory](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673272), [The Illusions of Prisms](http://archiveofourown.org/works/673700), [Keratitis Sicca](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682311), [Schrödinger’s Realm](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682327), [Chiaroscuro](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682358), [Altered Trajectories](http://archiveofourown.org/works/682370), [Elegiacs](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1952136), [Tachyphylaxis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1952244), [Verismo](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953516), [Forced Perspective](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953594), [Lex Talionis](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953624), [Repetition Compulsion](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953663), [Cardioid Geometry](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1953693), [Mereology](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1959777), [Battlelines](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1960131) and [Enteropathy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1960167)

The note isn’t completely critical but she chooses to take it that way and when she combines it with the line of bottles that scar her stoop it definitely seems accusatory and insulting. It’s only a few objects, it’s a certainly too small to be an effective barricade and yet the diagonal row of glass is somehow an extremely foreboding sight. Her eyes shift from the note to Lynette but she feels no sense of connection with the woman across the street. The force that usually unites them seems to have melted away as though the green glass is embedded with power to destroy their bond; her own personal kryptonite. Lynette gathers toys and goes inside and in response she crushes the note with as much malice as she can muster. It’s not as grand a gesture as smashing the bottles would have been but she likes to think that it serves a similar symbolic purpose and has the advantage of avoiding the unwanted attention that the alterative action would garner. 

She can’t let Lynette get away with this level of impudence and she wants to confront her immediately but she won’t allow Lynette to have that kind of power over her. The bottles clink as she gathers them up, they seem determined to signal their presence to the world. She doesn’t see them as a source of guilt or shame, she has nothing to be embarrassed of, despite what everyone seems to think, she does not have a problem with alcohol. She would be tempted to have a small glass of wine before engaging Lynette but she knows that it would only be used to fuel the blonde’s arguments and so she has to forgo that option and prepare herself to meet Lynette without the aid of courage that can be poured from a bottle.

Lynette opens the door but her head only appears briefly in frame before she’s dragged away by the twins. Bree listens as firm words falling on inattentive ears and with a final forceful decree and the threat of talking with Santa, Lynette re-emerges and ushers them away from the house. “What do you want Bree?”

“Don’t play coy, you wouldn’t have left me that inflammatory note if you didn’t expect me to respond.”

“I didn’t feel that I had a lot of choice. You implied that you weren’t interested in speaking with me if I was going to bring up any negative content and unfortunately I don’t happen to believe that I was put on the Earth to stroke your ego.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Really? You certainly seemed to think that I had no right to criticise you and yet you weren’t shy about trying to bring me down a peg or two.”

“That’s not how it happened, Lynette.”

“I’m pretty sure that I am a more reliable witness than you, at least I wasn’t tanked.”

“I have not been drinking and I don’t know what makes you think you’re in a position to look down at me, it’s not like you’ve never gotten drunk looking after your kids.”

“The difference between you and me, Bree, is that I’m willing to admit that I did it. I’m not proud of it but I would never hide it. You, on the other hand, tried to pretend it didn’t happen. You lied to me, you lied to my face.”

“Because I knew you would take it the wrong way and blow everything out of proportion and look here you are and imagine this, there is no proportion in sight.”

Lynette glances around and steps closer, her voice is barely audible as though she is terrified that the world at large will hear, “I grounded my kids, I defended you when people suggested that it might be your fault. I believed in you. I believed in us. I’m such an idiot.”

“I don’t have a drinking problem Lynette so how can I have been lying about it?”

“You said you hadn’t been drinking when you were looking after the kids, whatever your issues might be, you out and out lied to me.”

“You make it sound like you would be okay with the fact that I was a raging alcoholic just so long as I didn’t lie to you.”

“Maybe I would.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Probably not but it’s hard enough that we have so many secrets, so many things that we can’t say, I don’t want us to lie to one another.”

“We lie by omission all the time.”

“Somehow that doesn’t feel the same.”

“What do you want from me Lynette?”

“I’m not sure that I want anything.”

“We’re both angry, maybe we should have a little time apart.”

Lynette moves closer but her whisper is still difficult to discern, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“But I don’t think it’s enough. I can’t trust you anymore.”

“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating just a little?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t want to look after the kids?”

“I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

The laugh Lynette emits is completely devoid of humour, “Where was the concern for my feelings when you told me that you have a problem with my kids and that their behaviour is my fault?”

“I recall that you were accusing me of having an alcohol problem at the time.”

“I was legitimately concerned for you, you were making a personal attack.”

“If that’s the way you feel, maybe we should end this.”

“There’s nothing to end.”

“I’m fine with that, I happen to agree with you.”

“Good, cause I’m fine with it too,” Lynette turns as though this is the end of their conversation.

“I have some things that you might want back.”

Lynette seems to hesitate, “You can keep them.”

“I don’t want them anymore.”

“Fine then, hurry up and hand them over.”

She reaches into her pocket and produces a key, “I still have a copy with all of the other in case of emergency keys that the neighbourhood has entrusted me with, I can go back and get it if you like, but this one was different…” she doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, she’s not even sure that she wants to. She wants to tell Lynette that she has been wearing her wedding ring on a chain around her neck and frequenting places that have strong ties to Rex because she has been feeling like she’s losing him, because every morning she wakes up and the pain is a little bit less and that it has nothing to do with alcohol, that it’s because of the way Lynette makes her feel but she has painted herself into a corner and the time for confessions of that nature has passed.

“I know what it meant,” Lynette replies as she snatches the key and quickly pockets it herself, “you can keep that other key, if you want to, I mean, you don’t have to.”

“Are you sure you can trust me with it?” she had intended to try and end this with civility but she can’t seem to suppress her feelings. 

Lynette doesn’t bite, “Is that all that you wanted to give me?”

“There’s these,” she hands Lynette a set of freshly laundered sheets and watches as Lynette takes a shuddering breath and closes her eyes.

“Thank you Bree,” there is a distance in Lynette’s voice that she’s never heard before. Lynette goes back into the house and is engulfed in the cries of children. Bree realises that the woman who entered to the house is doing the best to transform herself back into a doting wife and mother and she is not going to stand in her way. Lynette can have her family because Bree doesn’t need her, she doesn’t need Rex or her children, she can look after herself. She returns to her own house and opens a fresh bottle of wine because no matter what anyone thinks, she doesn’t have a problem with alcohol, after all it’s the only relationship in her life over which she has any control at all.


End file.
